


moments between yesterday and tomorrow

by Everlind



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Archived From Everlind Blog, Archived From Tumblr, Coming of Age, Falling In Love, M/M, Slow Burn, Trolls on Earth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2019-09-12 23:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 6,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16881123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlind/pseuds/Everlind
Summary: Karkat Vantas is four years old when he meets a human boy at the park.Even though Karkat doesn't know how to make friends, somehow John Egbert becomes his.Kind of.





	1. Chapter 1

The earliest memory you have of him you’re three, maybe four earth sweeps. 

Around the corner of your hiveblock is a park. In the park is a playground. There’s constructions of wood and metal, painted in once-bright colors that are now flaking at the edges. Children clamber all over these, screaming and running and pulling and pushing. You’re the only troll. Nobody wants to play with you. So you sit by yourself in a patch of shade and mull with your hands through the soft white sand between your legs. Your lusus squats at the edge of the sandbox. A little girl won’t stop wailing plaintively, big brown eyes turned frightfully in his direction. 

There’s a child, planted square on their rump in the middle of the sandbox. You think it’s a boy, about your height with skin the color of those caramel candies that get stuck between your fangs and make them ache (you’re not supposed to eat those, but you can’t seem to stop). He’s wearing an ocular viewing aid with a piece of tape around one of the sidepieces. His eyes are blue, and the look in them is frank. He’s at the hub of all activity.

He yells a lot and laughs even more. 

Every once in a while you catch him looking at you, full-on, unabashed gaping. It is obvious he’s psyching himself up to come over and –you don’t know what, exactly, but the anticipation strings your muscles tense and ready over your tiny body for the whole of the afternoon.

A tall man with a hat calls him away before anything happens. 

“John,” the man says and holds out a large hand.

The boy gets up, giggling breathlessly as sand cascades from his clothes in a soft hiss. Clutches at two of the man’s fingers with his whole hand and leaves without looking back.

You feel oddly bereft.


	2. Chapter 2

The swing set is your favorite. It’s the other kids’ favorite, too. You often spend a whole day lurking at the edges without getting a turn. Today one of the swings is unoccupied, the seat swaying invitingly in the breeze.

Dad screeches after you when you promptly release his claw and take off running towards it. The patter of your feet is very loud in the ensuing silence. You clamber onto it, making the seat rock wild enough to nearly pitch you straight off again. You cling to the chain and kick hard with your legs for a boost, until you can hoist your butt up on the plastic seat.

Winded, you survey the playground. Crabdad is making himself very small, head tucked close to his carapace. When you have bad dreams he does exactly this until you calm down enough to crawl out of your coon and go to him. He’s saying:  _harmless, I’m harmless_ , but for some reason there’s still parents ushering their children away. Your face falls into a frown.

“That your lusus?”

Your body jolts in surprise. The seat next to you is taken. It’s the boy with the blue eyes and loud laugh. He’s looking straight at you.

“Very noisy, isn’t she?” He continues blithely. A leaf sticks out of his dark hair.

There’s a crawling feeling in your belly. Something with many legs and a sharp bite. “That’s my dad, stupid.”

“Huh,” he says and kicks out his feet to start swinging.

You watch him climb higher and higher and higher still, until it feels like he’s either about to careen out of control and drop like a stone, or break loose and drift into the sky. It’s hard to tell which is worse. You’re not sure why you begin to try and match him, you don’t even  _want_  to go that high at all. Yet you’re pulling at the chains and throwing your weight into it to catch up on him. 

On the apex of your upswing you feel the seat of your pants separate from the solid plastic seat. You let out a mangled thrill of fright. It’s a total wriggler noise and sets off a flurry of laughter from your companion.

“You sound like a bird!” he yells, the words all but snatched from his mouth as he rushes by.

“I do not!” you shout back, mortified. 

“Do too!”

“Do  _not_!” you scream and yank hard on the chains, overtaking him at last.

“Hey!”

Up you go, arms straining as you bow the metal chain to your will —then you’re weightless, for just a second. Suspended and wordless, before gravity tears you down again. It feels like soaring. There’s laughter at the edges of your awareness and your world is spring green and endless blue. You’re swinging in perfect tandem.

And then the whole wooden frame of the swing set groans and rocks right along with you both -wooden posts freeing themselves from the clutching sand. You shriek in surprise and even the boy goes  _WHOA_. 

“Shit!” you gasp -you’re not supposed to say that, you remember, but you’re not sure why anymore.

“We’re going to have to jump!” he says, like this is a game.

You’re too scared to turn your head to look at him. Both of you hurtle backwards for the down arc, pass through the wooden posts and emerge at the other side, going up once more. Again, the whole structure tips along and your belly explodes in a nest of wriggling worms. 

“No!” you snarl at him.

“On three!” he says. “ _One_ -“

“Wait—!“ but you’re both racing forwards again.

“Two-“

Your hands are sweating as you skim fast and low against the ground only to rise again. Going up.

“ _THREE_!”

You let go. There’s a blurred impression of ground and trees angled all wrong as the air is stolen from your mouth. The sun glitters at the edges of your vision, molten gold and silvery bright.

Arms milling, you fly through the air and for a single moment you don’t think you’ll ever land again. You do of course, slamming into the earth and sinking into the soft sand up to your ankles. Too fast, too hard and you’re tossed to your knees, hands slamming down to catch your weight. All air is knocked from your body. 

The other lands on his feet lightly, effortless.

You’re hurting enough that you have to hunch low to regain your dazed bearings.

The boy is laughing, spinning circles with his arms pumping at the air. “That was so cool!” he cheers, reaching with his hands towards the sun, fingers spread so gilded light spills through to flicker over his face. Then he sees you. “Hey, you okay?”

Jaw set and head buzzing with red hot noise, you get up. You get up, stomp over to him and you push him, hard.

He goes ‘oof’ as he plops down on his ass.

“Your face is really stupid, stupid!” you tell him through clenched fangs, before turning sharply on your heel and running towards your dad.

 

You want to go home.


	3. Chapter 3

The very next day the boy marches up to you and shoves you back.

“You face is stupider, stupid!” he says and you wonder how that’s the best he can come up with after a day and a night of stewing on it. “And my name is John.”

It’s a flat, short, drab sort of sound. Like a yawn. You scoot backwards, out of his shadow and get your legs under yourself. Standing, you’re about the same height as he is. Vindictively you think that as soon as your horns properly come in you’ll be much taller (right now they’re just small rounded bumps hidden in your hair) -and he will never  _ever_  have any. For some reason the knowledge fills you with a sharp dizziness.

Satisfied, apparently, John tucks his arms behind his back and rocks on his heels. “So what’s yours?” he asks. “Your name. Trolls have names, too, right?”

The words clatter down like a rain of bricks. Worse is that you don’t know whether he’s being mean or just stupid, only that both options fill you with infuriated energy. “Of course I have a name!” you growl at him and it’s a real growl, one that rattles the insides of your thorax slats and completely unlike the soft warning rumbles you give your dad when he’s bugging you. You cross your arms. “Karkat.”

“That’s a weird name,” John says.

It’s too much, he makes you so angry your head spins. You push him again and take off running while he’s down and out for the count.


	4. Chapter 4

Your summer is mostly you, sitting by yourself in that very same sandbox.

None of the other children ever ask whether you want to play with them, but they seem to resign themselves to the presence of your dad at least. You puzzle at how adamant he is about dragging you out here, time and time over again, but asking just gets him worked up and agitated, scuttling off to go and nose through documents. He can’t read and he can’t write and he can’t  _talk_ , even, leaving you to wonder where those came from.

Some days, however, John is there, too. You make very sure he never catches you looking, because he’s stupid, he’s dumb and he’s not worth your time and you know better. But you make  _extra_  sure your sandcastles are bigger (and better!) than his are, that you manage to steal the swing before he can and that you climb faster, dig harder and jump farther.

Days when it’s just you -you and all the other kids- those seem to last forever. Like you might be waiting for something you cannot name. Dad always takes you home early on those, but you’ll find yourself chock-full of buzzing energy and tearing around the hive in a frenzy until you drop from exhaustion, miserable.

It gets warmer and the sun becomes harsher. The punishing brilliance suffuses you with a profound need to lie down and close your eyes, but you’d never dare out in the open and exposed. However, you’re small enough to squeeze through the wooden slats at the bottom of the wooden tower. It’s shadowed, rather dank smelling and when kids run over the plateau overhead white grains of sand rain down on you.

You still don’t sleep (what if someone comes?), but you imagine this is a secret hideout where you’re invisible, able to look out and not be seen in return.

And then blue eyes are spying on you from over the edge of the lowest slat. John blinks at you and you stare right back, narrowing yours. Under the sun his skin glows and his bright eyes make you uneasy. He’s covered in dirt, like always, and for some reason it is easier to watch how his shadow bends and warps over the rippled sand at your feet instead of his face.

He doesn’t say anything, retreating after only a moment. The plod of his feet through the sand circles ‘round until he’s under the bridge that connects your tower with the one that has a slip-and-slide. There he sits down and there he stays. Your nape prickles with his presence, so you twist until you can glimpse the green of his shirt through the gaps -keeping him in sight.

It’s warm, and the uneven, shifting surface of the sand reminds you of a pile.

An ear-splitting screech ruptures through your dream and you jolt into consciousness. You fell asleep. Sand sticks to your cheek and pours along the line of your spine. Rosy light streaks in heavy, slanted beams through the slats.

Your dad. Calling for you. Having actually ventured into the sandbox himself. There’s rhythmic hushing of great volumes of earth being displaced -you think he might be digging, looking for you under the sand.

“Dad,” you croak, but he doesn’t hear you.

He hears John loud and clear, however. “Hey, Karkat’s dad!” he hollers and you’re scrambling forward with your bloodpusher in your throat because what if he decides it’s John’s fault? Just as you’re hanging half-out, with your hips stuck behind the slat in your haste, John comes trotting up, pointing the way. “Look, see? There he is-“ he grins at you. He has horribly crooked teeth. “Are you stuck?”

“No,” you lie.

It doesn’t help that your dad instantly rushes forward to snuffle at you, knocking you around some more by awkwardly bumping you with his huge claws to make sure you’re whole.

“Dad,” you protest, batting hands at his arms. “Will you just wait?!” How humiliating. You managed to squeeze in there so easy, too.

Worse is that John’s lusus has to come and help you. You don’t like him touching you, but it lasts only for a moment and then you standing on your feet, lower belly scraped raw from being draped over the wood like a dirty sock.

Dad makes a low grating noise.

“You’re quite welcome,” John’s lusus says. You’re not at all convinced that was a thank you, but whatever. When he turns to you, you resist the impulse to press close to your father. “So you’re Karkat.”

“I told him you name,” John informs you genially. “That’s okay, right?”

It’s not, but you don’t quite dare say that with that tall man standing over you. He smiles at you, kind and infinitely patient so eventually you grit out a grudging: “Hi,” in return.

“Well, it was nice to finally meet you, Karkat,” John’s lusus says, “but it is time for us to go home.”

It does seem quite late. A heavy flush hangs over the playground, the lull of a late summer evening. Crickets buzz and dapples of sunshine flicker across the bridge of your nose.

“Daaaaad,” John whines, but he sticks out a grubby hand for his father to hold.

You and crabdad watch them go, trudging heavily through the loose sand of the playground. John glances over his shoulder, giving you another toothy grin. In a burst of inspiration, you stick out your tongue like you’ve seen the other children do.

After a moment of outraged gaping, John sticks out his own. 


	5. Chapter 5

“What do you think they’re talking about?” 

To call it ‘talking’ seems to you rather generous. John’s lulus is capable of producing a sequence of sounds that could be interpreted as such, obviously. Your dad? Not so much. Yet they’re doing  _something_. There’s a wad of papers on the bench between them both - _that_  wad of papers- and Mr. Egbert is slowly sorting through them.

Both of you are spying on your lusii from the very peak of the spiderwebbed rope structure. Even though you scaled it in no time flat, John’s much more at ease. Just perches on two intersecting ropes without using his hands. It makes you a little nervous, like a strong gust might toss him straight off, but then you remind yourself you don’t care.

“Don’t know,” you say, swinging your body down and through the complex matrix of rope. “Don’t care.”

“Liar, liar pants on fire,” John chants and you have no idea what that means, whether it is a malicious incantation or another of those inexplicable human things.

There’s a lot of those, you discover in the weeks that follow. John seems to think you’re friends, even when you sit on him and threaten to shove worms and dirt into his shirt. You bury him under the sand or chase him around until your chest and throat burns with exertion. You want to be better than him. Sometimes you  _are_  and you’ll go home with the sensation of thick, soft fur rubbing against the insides of your chest -warm and satisfied and slightly wicked. It’s the best because John absolutely hates losing and he’ll keep coming back until he wins, or it’s a draw. He’s reckless and strange and fast -too fast- no matter how hard you try when he runs he outdistances you, and you’ll come home covered in dust and grass and spring-loaded with sizzling energy.

Small changes happen in your hive. There’s warm water, suddenly, and clean sopor for your coon. Food packs now come every week, instead of only twice a month. You get new clothes.

The biggest change, however, is school.

It’s one you could never have anticipated. Suddenly there are lots of other kids. Suddenly there are other  _trolls_. 

You cannot believe your eyes. There’s a girl named Nepeta who shares her crayons with you and a boy named Sollux who  _floats_  his red and blue marker at the same time and it is all tremendously overwhelming. They want you to sleep between all these strangers and no matter how nice Nepeta was to you, you find yourself seeking out John, who’s in the same class. He’s curled on his side and wheezing softly already, because he’s dumbass, so you settle back-to-back, protecting one another’s blind spot. This, despite being perfectly aware it is very likely that out of them all, he’d be the first to pounce on you.


	6. Chapter 6

In Nepeta and Sollux you finally find friends and your days become a soft blur of playing with them at school and chasing John around after. 

A year passes and then two, and little things begin to make sense to you while others become hopelessly perplexing. 

What the green-eyed troll tells you in the schoolfeed at home doesn’t always match up with what you learn in school and you have no idea which of them is right. Sometimes the mail piles up against the wall, shoved aside by the hive door opening and closing ( _house, Karkat, not hive_  your teacher always says). When that happens there’ll be only cold water, no matter which taps you twist or how often or how far. If you give the envelopes to John’s lusus, the warm water will be back. If you wait too long food stops, too, so you learn to not forget. Your dad tries, but it’s not enough, so you help him.

John makes friends of his own; a boy and a girl with strange white hair. They play loud imaginary games and sometimes he pushes Dave, the other boy, and you’ll find yourself choking on a gripping jealousy you can’t place.

You stop watching the schoolfeed entirely and start reading whatever you can get your hands on. The teacher tries to stop you, tells you to play instead, until Rose comes and sits with you. She never talks to you, but the both of you are left alone.

John still sleeps at your back. You like him there, close so you know right where he is and you can keep an eye on him.

As time passes, your encounters with John move beyond the sandbox. Wild, endless chases with undefined rules that are constantly changing. Then one day, as spring is rolling into summer, you figure out how to climb trees.

“Oh, man,” John complains. He’s shielding his eyes with a hand against the low, honeyed flare of the setting sun. “That’s not fair.”

“Cry harder,” you call down at him as you pointedly make yourself comfortable. 

“Karkat,” he whines. “Come down, this isn’t fun.”

You pull off a handful of leaves and sprinkle them down so they get caught in his hair. John circles the tree a few times, rubs fingers along the deep gouges your claws left in the trunk. Then he takes off his shoes for a running start —doesn’t even get halfway. You make sure he hears you laugh. For the rest of the evening you lie stretched out along the branch, enjoying the futile scrabble of John’s soft hands and feet on the bark. Eventually he’s hurting enough to stop and settles down between the roots, rubbing his aching, filthy feet.

“Giving up already?” you say.

“Fuck you!” he yells.

He got that from Dave, you know. You repeat the words silently and like how your lips fold around them, how it blisters the air.  _Fuck you, fuck you,_  until you think you’ve got it right. Roll so you’re lying on your belly, looking down at him. “Do you want me to come down?” you taunt and wait until he’s looking up.

That’s when you drop out of the tree. 

You land on top of him. John shrieks as you tumble him over with your momentum. It’s  _perfect_ , just enough to knock the air out of him but no more and he’s so shocked you can feel the frantic thrum of his heart against your palms.

He shoves you away and scrambles upright, breathing hard, and you grab his ankle. He faceplants into the ground and the sound he makes - _ARGF_!- makes you laugh so hard you go boneless, but that’s okay, even when he sits on you and rubs both hands roughly through your hair.

What follows is two months of John getting scraped up and falling down and circling the tree. Then, suddenly, on a late-summer day you hear him grunt and huff right below you -he’s nearly there, hugging the trunk with his useless arms, feet kicking.

You reach out and help him up.


	7. Chapter 7

By elementary school your encounters with John have dissolved into actual tussles. John will run and you will catch him. Eventually. Both of you are evenly matched, but some days John just lets you pin him because he can’t stop laughing. It makes you angrier for some reason, because when that happens it’ll feel like he’s miles away, bright and unreachable and it scares you. It scares you and in a terrible, roundabout way that means he  _still wins_. It makes you so angry you can feel it at the root of your teeth and on the back of your tongue and the logical next step is to pass it on to him.

The first time you bite him he’s so shocked the laughter dies on his lips.

It’s not even all that hard -faint indents from your fangs that are fading already, but John’s on his back underneath you and his eyes are wild and uncomprehending. 

That’s when it fully occurs to you that he’s not like you at all. You can’t pass on the anger, not to him, because he’s different. Because he’s human.

You get off him.

John stays flat on his back for a moment. One hand comes up and presses against his neck, which is probably still damp from your saliva. You didn’t even bite him that hard, didn’t leave a mark. He’s not laughing anymore and that bothers you more than you thought it would. John sits up, palm still pressed against his neck and eyes downcast.

Right.

Your knees are shaky when you rise to your feet, and unreliable when you wobble away. Behind you there’s the soft rustle of mulch and moss as John stands up — and that’s it, you suppose, it’s over.

Whatever it was.

It was nothing, you tell yourself. He’s horrible. You have friends now, real friends who understand— what. Understand what? You don’t even know wha-aAAAH!

John knocks you bodily over, presses you face-first into the ground and sits on your back.

“You’re so weird,” he says. “Who even does that?”

“Mrphff!” you splutter, flopping under him like a fish out of water.

“Pfff,” John goes, like you actually managed to bring up a valid argument. 

“NGHHH!”

“Yeah, yeah, weirdo.”

And then he bites you back.


	8. Chapter 8

John does not act any differently towards you.

You like it when he bites you back, even as you realize he does it with a sense of playfulness and none of the broiling emotions you experience. It makes you careful for some reason, tentative and a little withdrawn, like if you only give him enough time he’ll catch up with you. He doesn’t and part of you knows he never will. You’re his friend, and to you he’s something you lack a word for. As much as that frustrates you, it doesn’t stop you from chasing after him at any opportunity he presents.

And the little shit makes sure there’s  _a lot_  of those.

Today you find yourself covered in pink glitter and so pissed off you could squirt vinegar. You are going to give him living  _hell_. 

As soon as you catch him. Any moment now. 

Bloody fuck but he’s getting  _fast_. He’s a little bit shorter and slighter than you, but it gives him an unfair advantage in sheer speed. He’s even getting better at climbing trees, absolutely fearless no matter high up he scrambles, until you can feel your heart knock between your ears, terrified he’s going to fall and break every stupid fragile bone in his stupid fragile body. 

He never does, and if you don’t manage to catch him  _right fucking now_ , he’ll monkey up a tree and be lost to you. 

“Get back here,” you snarl, plowing and tripping through bushes and tangled undergrowth.

“Am I going too fast for you, Karkat?” he yells over his shoulder. He’s hardly out of breath. 

“Stop skipping around like rabbit with a firecracker up its ass and stand still so I can kill you a lot!” it’s difficult to get the words out, your breath coming in fast, choppy heaves.

Ahead, John bursts out in snorting laughter. At school everybody is intimidated by your cursing (you got  _very_  good at it very fast), but he just finds it  _funny_. “Catch me first!”

Idiot. You put on a burst of speed, ignoring how the branches snag and slap at you, but you can already tell he’s going to get away. Quite suddenly however, he disappears from view. John screams, stops, then screams again, low and agonised. You find out you can run twice as fast as you were.

He’s laying on his side, covered from head to toe in brown crumples of leaves and dirt. A thorny branch is hooked around his leg and he must’ve tried to pull, the idiot, because ragged fissures trail through the skin. There’s a lot of blood.

He’s… John’s crying. Clear watery tracks down his cheeks. The sight of them makes you feel giddy and sick.

“Shit,” you croak.

John doesn’t answer. He’s eight and he’s bleeding and he’s sobbing and you have absolutely no idea what to do. Your hand drifts towards the strangle of his flesh around the thorns, hovering uncertainly. 

“I should go for help,” you manage, thinking of your dad all the way back at the playground. The branch is old and gnarled with age, gone wooden and nasty, but your dad’d be able to snip through it with ease.

“No!” John gasps, grabbing your sleeve. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m going to come back,” you point out blandly. “Stupid.”

“No,  _please_ ,” he goes, fingers twisting the fabric around your arm.

John doesn’t look at you, he’s gone all gritted and furious from the pain, teeth bared and face blotchy. You hardly recognise him, the way he seems strangely savage, but also soft and afraid. In some weird, twisted corner of your being, when you’re alone and hidden in your coon, you… you sometimes think about making him cry. It always came with the tingling, proud sensation of achievement.

Suddenly you feel horrible for ever even  _thinking_  about that… like it’d be some sort of sick reward. What’s  _wrong_  with you? Fuck. You swallow thickly, because there, at the gentle hollow under his ear, is a faint outline of teeth. Your teeth. 

You don’t want to be here anymore, you need to get away from him  _now_.

“John,” you go, feeling like you might throw up any moment. “I need to get help.”

“I know,” he gulps, “I know, just stay, just for a moment-“

Thick drops roll down his cheeks. He’s a messy cryer. It makes you feel weirdly excited, the way you do when you can pin him down after a long wrestle. That’s terrible.  _You’re_  terrible.

“Stop it!” you snarl at him.

John actually manages to glare at you. “It hurts!” he yells and in the wake of that he draws in a shaky breath, one that wracks his entire frame. “It really hurts.”

You don’t doubt that it does, the way the skin bulges up around the thorns stuck in the meat of his leg and ragged lines of skin peeling up the corners. Of course it hurts and you’re scared you might just like that it does. More than anything you want to get up and leave, maybe find a convenient cliff and perform a triple backflip off the edge.

John’s not letting you go and he’s not sobbing anymore, but tears slide hot and fast down his cheeks. So many of them. Where does it keep coming from? His irises have gone luminous and his lashes are plastered into spikes. You can’t stop looking.

Before your brain catches up with your body, you’ve leaned in. 

It’s salty. You knew it would be, they’re  _tears_ , but his sting a little at your upper lip when you lick them from his cheek. John’s shaking and his breath is impossibly hot and he’s very still, but he never stops you.

You feel like you’re getting away with something.

 

After, you feel guilty. You feel terrible. All the way crabdad carried him, John held on to your sleeve. John’s dad  _thanked_  you. 

 _John_  thanked you.

Something about you is very, very  _wrong_.


	9. Chapter 9

You agonise over it for weeks.

It shows, you’re shit at hiding your emotions. No matter how hard you bite down, they still brim up over the edges and leak all over the place. John knows something’s up. You’re so much more careful with him, even weeks later when he’s healed -like being less hard on him  _now_  will make up for what you did. In response, John pushes you harder, confused and peeved, like you’re somehow snubbing him. 

“My leg is fine,” he’ll say, wrestling you to the ground and showing you just how alright he is by stuffing handfuls of sand down your shirt.

 There’s heavy, puckered scars on his leg; thick ridges of shiny tissue that pull the skin all wrong. He barely limps and before long he’s running faster than ever. It’s not that. You feel like you betrayed him, like you took something from him you hadn’t earned. You don’t quite know how to make amends for it and for  _what_  and if you even  _can_. Worst of all? Whenever you think of the taste of John’s tears and his gasping, pained breath everything goes  _wrong_  inside of you. Like you’re straining against yourself in two opposite directions.

It drives you mad. It drives you away from John, because he’s the source of it. Because he still looks at you with that open, guileless expression and you need him to be angry with you. But he isn’t. He isn’t at all. He acts like you did something nice for him, the way he’ll stay flush against your side when he’s catching his breath after a tussle. He trusts you and you can’t stand it.

Not being around him makes you restless and being restless makes you angry and there seems to be no end to the well of black fury within you.

Eventually John comes to find you at school. “Did I do something wrong?” he asks and he stares at you with those big clear eyes like your answer matters everything to him.

“Of course not,” you say, looking at a point beyond his left shoulder. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Oh,” he goes, smiling. “Oh, good. Hey, we can go to the park later. I saw this really big tree, we could try to climb it!”

“Yeah. Sure.”

But you don’t go. You don’t go the day after that, either. You do go the day after that, however, and you and John climb that tree, but it’s not the same. All the while you carry it with you, the guilt, and it has settled slick and chilly in the pit of your belly where it scrapes grimy claws along the inside of your spine.  _You ruined it_ , it says.

One day, Nepeta comes and finds you. It’d been nearly four months after the incident and you still are missing more than half the pieces to the puzzle that is the churning disaster in your chest. Nepeta finds you and asks you what’s wrong. Well, okay, no, she hunts you down, sits on your chest and wrings your arm until you finally all but shriek what it was you did to John, what an awful piece of scum you really are. After, you lie there all shaken and angry, glaring up at her, just daring her to  _go on, walk away_.

Nepeta goes  _pfft_! Pokes your nose. “Oh, Karkitty,” she says, squishing both your cheeks between her palms. “I know exactly what’s wrong with you!”

“… everything?” you go mutinously.

Nepeta covers your mouth with a hand, rolls her eyes. “You’re a troll.”

“Wow, fuck you, so are you, you silly cat girl!” you say —or rather, muffle out angrily against her fingers.

Nepeta just considers you for a moment, still sitting on your chest. “I think we need to have a sleepover,” she suggests, apropos of nothing.

You drool on her palm until she takes her hand away. “A what now?”

“Sleep. Over.” Nepeta says, wiping her hand on your shirt. “My hive, tomorrow!” with that, she leaps to her feet and trots off.

“…I’ll bring the snacks?” you say to empty air.


	10. Chapter 10

Nepeta’s lusus is a huge feline with two mouths. A huge feline lusus with two mouths who finds it absolutely necessary to give you a thorough tongue-bath before bed. That’s twice as much drool and teeth in close proximity to your person. You feel like you nearly died.

Laughing at the horrible cowlicks in your hair, Nepeta ruffles it with both hands until it’s loose and fluffy. With the generous application of the saliva, she styles it in to a mohawk, then into a second pair of horns like Sollux’, before relenting and fingercombing it into a semblance of order. You let her, getting all shivery as she scratches lightly at your scalp. That’s nice. She’s nice.

Nepeta is a good friend, loyal and honest and kind. You don’t feel so wrong around her.

The two of you don’t share a coon -that’d be weird- but settle into a pile instead. It’s a sizeable mound covered in pelts. Classy. Smoothing the fur under your palm, you wonder where she got them …and then you remember her lusus. Yeah. That answers that. (you really hope no domesticated dogs wound up in there… sorry about your dog, sir. At least he makes a nice blanket? Awkward.)

Nepeta has a laptop, an old battered thing with a power cord so mangled it’s a surprise the whole setup doesn’t explode as soon as she plugs it in. You’re impressed anyway and filled with wrigglerish excitement when she allows you to mess with the trackpad and surf to YouTube. You don’t do much but click on a few things and nearly shit yourself when it turns out the volume is cranked all the way up.

After a while she takes over, arrow flying across the screen as she selects and clicks, selects and clicks, selects and clicks again. Sites you’ve never even heard about pop into view.

“Watch and learn, my young Padawan,” she says, making her voice low and lofty -before grinning pointed fangs at you. 

They’re movies.

They’re troll movies.

They’re troll movies about romance.

You feel like you could fucking cry. Not that you do! It’s just that suddenly everything falls into place with such a resounding, earth-shaking crash and it rocks you to the very core of your being.

On screen two trolls lock horns. The dry grate of it sends shivers down your spine. You’re positively blushing. Nepeta won’t stop giggling so you smack her whenever you remember to (which is not often -your eyes are glued to the screen). One of them bites the other under the curve of their jaw, just enough pressure to leave dainty pinpricks in their wake —and then they kiss.

“Uhm,” you go, half-squinting at the screen.

“Er,” Nepeta goes. “Should I…?”

“Yeah!” you blurt and then just squeeze your eyes shut completely because that was tongue. That definitely was tongue. Going into the other’s mouth. Your face feels so hot you worry your horns will fry off.

“I skipped it!” Nepeta chirps.

You crack open an eye. She did. Phew.

Both of you glance at each other, before bursting into embarrassed sniggers. Okay, that was weird.

Nepeta has a whole collection and it takes you into the early hours of morning to watch a mere fraction of it. Even though your eyes are achy and your spine stiff, your mind is awhirl. Credits roll across the screen of her laptop. You worry your bottom lip and try to make sense of the thoughts shrieking through your mind.

“Quadrants,” you croak eventually.

“Yep!”

“ _Four_  quadrants.” 

“Yep!”

“Four different types of romance.”

“Yep.”

“Jesus fuck.”

Nepeta snickers nervously, a little embarrassed by you language and you instantly feel like a douce.

“Sorry,” you blurt, sheepish.

“Right!” she pipes up. “Allow me to draw you a grid.”

“I like grids.” Something about the sublime precision of the interlocking lines strikes you as particularly elegant. You do like for things to be all neat and clear. Fuck yeah grids.

Draw a grid she does. Nepeta has a steady hand and with one decisive swoop she draws first a vertical line, before crossing it with an horizontal one neatly at the middle. She pauses for dramatic effect, twirling the pencil between her fingers. Wags her brows.

“Work your magic sensei,” you tell her indulgently, gesturing at the sketchbook.

In the upper right compartment she draws an heart in red. Switches for a pink pencil and fills up the next one going clockwise -a diamond. Clubs in gray and finally -the one you’ve been waiting for- a spade, in solid black. Done.

“Okay,” you manage, throat dry even as your mind goes into overdrive attempting to match what you saw in the movies to the correct… quadrant. Quadrant, quadrant,  _quadrant_  -you have quadrants!  _Four_  quadrants. No wonder you felt you were going to split at the seams. You’re fine. You’re okay. There’s nothing wrong with you. Maybe if you keep telling yourself that you’ll believe it. 

You’re fine. You are. Really. So why does Nepeta seem almost sad when she looks at you?

“What?” you go.

Picking up a blue crayon, Nepeta says: “John’s here,” and writes his name underneath the spade.

You were right. Wow, you’re a natural at this. “Kismesis,” you say, nodding. That’s what you and John are, only with less… well. Gross stuff.

“Quadrants are very confusing, and the boundaries are fluid,” Nepeta informs you, trying for casual but can you tell right away she’s leading up to something you are absolutely Not Going To Like. You arch a brow, indicating she should just spit it out, whatever it is.

Nepeta purses her mouth. Sighs. “Karkat.”

“Yeah?”

“Humans don’t have quadrants,” she admits, sounding sorry, like it’s her fault somehow. “They only have this one,” and taps the page with the end of her pencil.

The heart.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Oh, no.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic sprang to life by this prompt (made by deaddave17 on Tumblr):  
> Johnkat childhood friend au with either first confession/kiss @0@!!!!!!!!!!!


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